


Works and days of hands

by wildmachinery



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-05-02
Updated: 2005-05-02
Packaged: 2017-10-16 04:26:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/168395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildmachinery/pseuds/wildmachinery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>There will be time to murder and create, And time for all the works and days of hands.</i>  Post-ep for Tin Man.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Works and days of hands

In the tunnels under P3X-989, time has an oddly stretched quality, and feels endless, unbroken by physical needs.

Jack gets a little stir-crazy after a while, and goes off for days at a time; exploring, he says, and whenever he wanders back, he's expressionless and empty. He cleans his guns minutely, reverently, and when he leans back and closes his eyes, it almost looks like he's sleeping.

Daniel keeps to himself, too, and mostly stays in the same few rooms, filling up reams of paper with his hurried, uncareful scrawl. Transcribing, he says, from memory. Sometimes he and Jack go off together in their shared silence; he told Sam once that what he misses most of all are his books.

Teal'c sits, alone and unmoving, for hours; true kel'no'reem is impossible, he says, without the symbiote, but he tries anyway. It's nothing like it used to be. His fists clench and his jaw works, completely unconsciously, and he comes away from it with a headache, frustration pouring off in waves. He doesn't say anything about it; he just keeps trying.

Sam works on fixing the outdated tunnel systems, and works on her idea for a portable power pack, and when she can't concentrate on work anymore, she folds paper cranes. It's something she learned to do in high school, a thousand years ago in someone else's life, and she can't help thinking, every minute, how completely unfair it all is. She tries to forget, sometimes, that her memories aren't real.

Their voices are strangely loud and unreal in the heavy-hanging quiet of the tunnels, and eventually they just stop talking.

Sam leaves trails of tiny birds up and down the hallways, linked beak to tail. She perches them on the tops of pipes and doorways.

She writes a message about Zen on a bird and leaves it on Daniel's papers, while he's out on walkabout with Jack. He writes her a short treatise on Buddhist history and practices, and leaves it in her room while she's out working on the main steam trunk distribution venue. After she's read it, she leaves it lying out where Teal'c will find it.

Recharging is nothing like sleeping, and she hopes that in a few years, she won't remember the difference.

Teal'c finds colored paper for her somewhere, and she teaches him the pattern, and together they make flocks of bright little birds, blue and green and red and yellow. They pile up inexorably in corners, delicately, like snowdrifts. Sam tells him the old story about folding a thousand cranes. Teal'c looks perplexed at the notion of wishes being granted by paper, and asks, in his formal, measured voice that's rusty from disuse, if it is some sort of Zen concept.

When Sam works on her more unfascinating projects, her mind tends to wander, and her hands move - building, repairing - of their own accord. She remembers, painfully, dreaming about what it would be like to have this much time. She thinks about daylight, and ice cream, and the smell of mown grass.

She doesn't think about the quiet, but it feels sometimes like she's about to burst open at the seams, and she doesn't quite know why. Once, she comes back to herself with Teal'c standing over her, and realizes that she's been staring at the wrench she's holding for the past half-hour. Teal'c takes it gently from her hand, and when she laces her fingers tightly with his, he smiles, and doesn't pull away.

They make more birds, unspeaking. One day, Sam hears muffled swearing from a nearby passageway; she drops her tools and runs with Teal'c on her heels. When they get there, Jack is sitting on the floor, cursing a blue streak and ignoring Daniel's outstretched hand. He slipped on something, Daniel says, and crouches down next to him. Jack is gingerly rubbing his butt and aiming a baleful glare at Sam; Daniel picks up the offending bird, completely crushed now, and wiggles it at her. Sam can't help it; her mouth twitches, and then she's laughing, quietly, and it's so good it almost hurts. Daniel starts chuckling, too, and Teal'c looks down and smiles widely. They hear Harlan calling anxiously from far away, asking what's wrong, and Jack's laugh breaks out, rough and rueful and unexpected, and slowly, sound returns.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted at [sg1_flashfic](http://community.livejournal.com/sg1_flashfic/1341.html). Title is from T.S. Eliot's _The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock_.


End file.
